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APPERCEPTION (Lat. ad and percipere, ...

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Originally appearing in Volume V02, Page 221 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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APPERCEPTION (See also:Lat. ad and percipere, perceive) , in See also:psychology, a See also:term used to describe the presentation of an See also:object on which See also:attention is fixed, in relation to the sum of consciousness previous to the presentation and the mind as a whole. The word was first used by See also:Leibnitz, practically in the sense of the See also:modern Attention (q.v.), by which an object is apprehended as " not-self " and yet in relation to the self. In Kantian terminology apperception is (I) transcendental—the See also:perception of an object as involving the consciousness of the pure self as subject, and (2) empirical,—the See also:cognition of the self in its See also:concrete existence. In (I) apperception is almost See also:equivalent to self-consciousness; the existence of the ego may be more or less prominent, but it is always involved. According to J. F. See also:Herbart (q.v.) apperception is that See also:process by which an aggregate or " See also:mass " of presentations becomes systematized (apperceptionssystem) by the See also:accretion of new elements, either sense-given orproduct of the inner workings of the mind. He thus emphasizes in apperception the connexion with the self as resulting from the sum of antecedent experience. Hence in See also:education the teacher should fully acquaint himself with the See also:mental development of the See also:pupil, in See also:order that he may make full use of what the pupil already knows. Apperception is thus a See also:general term for all mental processes in which a presentation is brought into connexion with an already existent and systematized mental conception, and thereby is classified, explained or, in a word, understood; e.g. a new scientific phenomenon is explained in the See also:light of phenomena already analysed arid classified. The whole intelligent See also:life of See also:man is, consciously or unconsciously, a process of apperception, inasmuch as every See also:act of attention involves the appercipient process. See Karl See also:Lange, Ueber Apperception (6th ed. revised, See also:Leipzig, 1899; trans.

E. E. See also:

Brown, See also:Boston, 1893); G. F. Stout, See also:Analytic Psychology (See also:London, 1896), bk. ii. ch. viii., and in general See also:text books of psychology; also PSYCHOLOGY.

End of Article: APPERCEPTION (Lat. ad and percipere, perceive)

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